Famous quotes of albert einstein

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." "Imagination is more important than knowledge." "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love." "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details." "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." "The only real valuable thing is intuition." "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself." "I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice." "God is subtle but he is not malicious." "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character." "I never think of the future. It comes soon enough." "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility." "Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing." "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds." "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it." "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically." "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking." "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal." "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."

 "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school." "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." "Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater." "Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity." "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut." "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep." "The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead." "Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves." "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!" "No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?" "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

 "Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever." "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker." "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." "The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge." "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." "One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year." "...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought." "He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how

despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)
A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be. Albert Einstein A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem. Albert Einstein A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. Albert Einstein A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy? Albert Einstein A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy? Albert Einstein All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. Albert Einstein All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual. Albert Einstein All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man's actions. Albert Einstein An empty stomach is not a good political adviser. Albert Einstein Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools. Albert Einstein

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. Albert Einstein Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. Albert Einstein Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. Albert Einstein Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. Albert Einstein As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue. Albert Einstein As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. Albert Einstein Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish. Albert Einstein Common sense invents and constructs no less than its own field than science does in its domain. It is, however, in the nature of common sense not to be aware of this situation. Albert Einstein Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. Albert Einstein

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." Albert Einstein

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"Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results." Albert Einstein
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"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." Albert Einstein
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"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." Albert Einstein
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"Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere." Albert Einstein
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"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself." Albert Einstein
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"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." Albert Einstein
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is; genius has its limits." Albert Einstein
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"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." Albert Einstein
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"Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources" Albert Einstein

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"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." Albert Einstein

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"When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity." Albert Einstein
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"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous." Albert Einstein (The World As I See It)
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"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" Albert Einstein
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"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein
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"I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university." Albert Einstein
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"A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it." Albert Einstein
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"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school." Albert Einstein
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"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." Albert Einstein
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"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." Albert Einstein

tags: inspirational-life 2,435 people liked it

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"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning." Albert Einstein (Relativity: The Special and the General Theory)
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"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy." Albert Einstein
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"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." Albert Einstein
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"Never memorize something that you can look up." Albert Einstein
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"Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves." Albert Einstein
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"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." Albert Einstein
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"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love." Albert Einstein

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"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music." Albert Einstein
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"The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking." Albert Einstein
tags: change , deep-thoughts , thinking , world 1,490 people liked it

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"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical

delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Albert Einstein
tags: compassion , einstein , nature , philosophy 1,425 people liked it

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"Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value." Albert Einstein
tags: adulthood , success , value 1,275 people liked it

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"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science." Albert Einstein (Albert Einstein)
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"Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler." Albert Einstein
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"The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer somebody else up." Albert Einstein
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"Black holes are where God divided by zero." Albert Einstein

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"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity" Albert Einstein

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"You never fail until you stop trying." Albert Einstein

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"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Albert Einstein
tags: albert-einstein , future , war , wisdom 929 people liked it

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"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" Albert Einstein
tags: einstein , human , humor , philosophy , stupidity 889 people liked it

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"Creativity is intelligence having fun." Albert Einstein

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"Love is a better master than duty." Albert Einstein

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"What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right." Albert Einstein
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"When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again." Albert Einstein
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"If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut" Albert Einstein
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"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding." Albert Einstein
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"It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer." Albert Einstein
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"Out of clutter, find simplicity." Albert Einstein

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"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." Albert Einstein
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"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile." Albert Einstein

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"God does not play dice with the universe." Albert Einstein (The Born-Einstein Letters 1916-55)
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